“Judaism as a Spiritual Path… in a Post-Modern World”

A conversation (mostly in English) with rabbi and teacher Arthur Green, whose newest books are Judaism’s 10 Best Ideas and The Heart of the Matter. With rabbis Levi Weiman-Kelman and Ruth Gan Kagan. Organized and introduced by Ya’qub ibn Yusuf, the proprietor of Jerusalem’s spiritual bookstore Olam Qatan.

This was recorded live at Kehilat Kol Haneshama, #1 Rehov Asher (at the end of Emek Refaim) on Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 6:30 p.m.

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An Excerpt From Anatomy Of The Spirit by Caroline Myss

“David Chetlahe Paladin (his real name) shared his personal history with me in 1985; he passed away in 1986. It is a testimony to the human potential to achieve a quality of internal power that defies the limitations of physical matter. When I met him, he radiated a quality of empowerment that was rare, and I had to know how he had achieved what so many people were seeking to achieve. David was one of my finest teachers, a person who mastered the sacred truth Honor One Another and who fully transmitted to others the energy of the sefirah of Yesod and the sacrament of communion.David was a Navajo Indian who grew up on a reservation during the 1920s and 1930s. By the time he was eleven, he was an alcoholic. He left the reservation in this mid-teens, wandered around for a few months, then got a job on a merchant marine ship. He was only fifteen but passed himself off as sixteen.On board ship, he became friends with a young German and another young Native American. Together they traveled to ports of call throughout the Pacific Ocean. As a hobby, David took up sketching. One subject he sketched was the bunkers that the Japanese were building on the various islands in the South Seas. The year was 1941.David’s bunker drawings eventually fell into the hands of the American military. When he was drafted into military service, he assumed that he would continue his work as an artist. Instead, he became part of a secret operation against the Nazis. The Army had enlisted Navajo and other Native Americans for a spy network. The operatives were sent behind enemy lines and transmitted information back to the main base of military operations in Europe. Because all radio transmissions could be intercepted, Native American languages were used to guarantee that a message picked up could not be interpreted.While David was behind enemy lines, he was caught by a group of Nazi soldiers. The Nazis tortured him by, among other things, nailing his feet to the floor and then forcing him to stand for days in that condition. After surviving that horror, David was sent to an extermination camp because he was “of a lesser race.” While he was being shoved into a train car, he felt a rifle push him in the ribs, ordering him to move faster. He turned to face the Nazi soldier. It was the German fellow David had befriended on board the merchant marine ship.David’s German friend made arrangements for David to be transferred to a prisoner of war camp, where he spent the remaining years of the war. When the camps were liberated, American soldiers found David unconscious and dying. Transported to the United States, David spent two and a half years in a coma in a military hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. When he finally came out of the coma, his body was so weakened from his prison camp experiences that he could not walk. He was fitted for heavy leg braces and, using crutches, he could drag himself short distances.David made up his mind to return to his reservation, say a last good-bye to his people, then enter a veterans’ hospital and stay there for the rest of his life. When he arrived at the reservation, his family and friends were horrified at what had become of him. The gathered together and held council to figure out how to help him. After the council meeting the elders approached David, yanked the braces off his legs, tied a rope around his waist, and threw him into deep water. “David, call your spirit back,” they commanded. “Your spirit is no longer in your body. If you can’t call your spirit back, we will let you go. No one can live without his spirit. Your spirit is your power.”“Calling his spirit back,” David told me, was the most difficult task he ever had to undertake. “It was more difficult than enduring having my feet nailed to the floor. I saw the faces of those Nazi soldiers. I lived through all those months in the prison camp. I knew that I had to release my anger and hatred. I could barely keep myself from drowning, but I prayed to let the anger out of my body. That’s all I prayed, and my prayers were answered.”David recovered the full use of his legs and went on to become a shaman, a Christian minister, and a healer. He also returned to his drawing and earned a reputation as a highly talented artist.David Chetlahe Paladin radiated a quality of power that felt like grace itself. Having survived a confrontation with the darkest side of power, he transcended that darkness and spent the rest of his life healing and inspiring people to “call back their power” from experiences that drain the life-force from their bodies.”

On Rosh Hashanah of the year 5507, Reb Yisrael – commonly known as the Baal Shem Tov – went up to Heaven to see what was happening there. The things he saw there were so incredible that they are simply impossible to explain.

On his way back to Earth, the Baal Shem Tov stopped off in Gan-Eden-Hatachton, (the lowest of the seven Gan-Eden’s), where he met many different types of souls. The souls immediately recognized the great Tzaddik, and together as one they begged him to please help them reach higher places in Heaven. Reb Yisrael saw how happy they were that he had come and how certain they were that he would help them and go up with them to higher places – therefore he agreed to do it. However, since Reb Yisrael had never gone so high before, he was afraid that he might be unable to come all the way down again; he therefore asked his Rebbe,Achiya Hashilony, to come with him, for Reb Yisrael felt safer with his teacher at his side. (Achiya Hashilony was a prophet who had lived from the times of ancient Egypt all the way to the times of King Shlomo; although he had already passed away, he would come to the Baal Shem Tov to teach him Torah.)

The Baal Shem Tov, Achiya Hashilony and the souls then began to soar up high into Heaven. They went highand higher, coming to places so high in fact, that even Reb Yisrael himself had never been to them before. They came to an incredibly high place and there, before their eyes, stood the heavenly palace of Moshiach, which is where Moshiach learns Torah with all the Tannaim and Tzaddikim who have already passed away.

Reb Yisrael entered the palace and saw that everyone there was very happy about something. He wasn’t sure about what but was afraid that maybe it was because he had died, and that’s why the Tzaddikim were so happy – because he had come to join them. However, they reassured him that his time to leave the world had not yet come.

Reb Yisrael then asked Moshiach, “When are you coming, Master?”

“When your teachings will spread to the rest of the world!” Moshiach answered.

Upon hearing those words the holy Baal Shem Tov immediately returned to Earth and spread his teachings far and wide, in greater amounts and to more people than he had ever done before.